Tony Bustamante, Mary Bustamante, Mary Regat, Jacques Regat, Tamara McCoy, Eric McCoy, Greg Durocher and Matt O’Connor form a group offamily and friends that specialize in French and Spanish tunes and classic American folk, with a little Irish thrown in.

Destany Hawley and the Forerunners

Ian Wahl, Harrison Jennings and Matt Faubion join Destany Hawley. These long-time friends from the Alaska Folk Arts and Bluegrass Camps for Kids programs are all grown up except for Destany who can’t grow any more…

Blue Copper Pull

Mike Simpson, Brice Kilpatrick, and Brian Shea write and perform songs that stave off the wonderlust that has been traded in for a more stationary life. Influences incude artists such as Devil Makes Three, The Doors, Parsonsfield, Mississippi John Hurt, and Johnny Cash.

Ain’t it a Shame

Jeremy Cohen, Larry Cohn, Kent Crandall, and Chris Beck offer campground music that gets the neighbors joining in rather than demanding they respect the curfew. Hot leads & good rhythms on choice selections, from the usual and less than usual songs & artists: Dylan, Dead, Bob Marley, Hendrix, Taj, the Band…

Girl in the Yellow Dress

Zoey Bigelow offers all original songs, intended to make you smile.

Friday Evening, January 27, 7 pm

emcee: Matt Rafferty

Between the Keys

Clay Johnson and Caleb Swan (both high school sophomores) enjoy playing music together and creating their own mash-ups of traditional blues and folk tunes.

Julia McKay Nauheim

Julia has been performing at the folk festival since she was four. This will be year #10.

You know the feeling you get when you hiccup and sneeze at the same time? thats the feeling they like to give the crowd every time they play: Ian Wahl, Matt Faubion, Harrison Jennings, and Clint Dallas.

Sons of Rank Strangers

Among this reunion of Anchorage’s 90s group, Rank Strangers, are not FRANK SOLIVAN, JOE PAGE or BERNARD GLANSBEEK. (But they’ll try extra hard to make up for it.) With Greg Booth, Dan Booth, and Joel Kadarauch.

Bootleg Brown

Suzanne Little, Paul Paslay, David Mannheimer, and Chuck Dunnagan are Bootleg Brown, the best bluegrass band in Anchorage…in their price range! Two members have been bandmates for nearly 40 years, three are attorneys and one is a former State Senator. Together, they produce a clean bluegrass sound in the North.

The Lullaby Project

Alaska’s Lullaby Project combined the talent of 15 Anchorage musicians with the poetry written by 15 mothers incarcerated at Hiland Mountain Correctional Center to produce legacy lullabies for the children of incarcerated moms. Magic happened!

John has a distinctive style of guitar playing, based on the guitar expertise of Chet Atkins. He also tells amusing stories and anecdotes between songs.

Teddy Krogh

As the state’s only professionally ranked bagpiper, who has been playing almost 20 years, Mr. Krogh has seen success nationally and abroad. Besides competing and performing, he teaches bagpipes privately to all ages.

Brothers Kevin and Andy

Brothers Andy Zhang (8) has played the violin for 5 years and Kevin Zhang (6 ) has played the violin for 3 years.

Three Fish in a Tree

Family band doing the best we can with what we have: Devin Frey, Kluonie Frey, Bill Frey, and Shonti Elder.

Katie Scoggin and Mai Wen

Katie is a 14-year-old student at Steller Secondary who plays guitar and sings. She has been performing the past 5 years at venues such as Saturday South Farmers’ Market.

The Flipside

An eclectic blend of classic rock, folk, blues, reggae, and Alaska inspired originals. These friends are committed to fun and music, in that order! With Ed Silcox, Molly Towner, Becky Kotter, Kyle Vanderschrier, and Judd Wattenbarger.

The Stairs

Mathew Olson, Hannah Smith, and Megan Kemp are all return performers at Folk Fest. Together they offer original tunes and arrangements with a focus on Alaskan-themed songs.

The Cheapest Key

Laura and Laurence met through attorney Meghan Kelly. Kelly hails from Wisconsin—the Badger State—and now lives in Kodiak with her immortal, albeit balding, dachshund Rebel. Beard and Beard (Charlie Earnshaw and GW Neal) don’t know Kelly, but joined the band this fall anyway.

Tom & Dom

Tom Lambert and Dominic Mauricio bring you traditional accoustic blues with a modern flair – from Robert Johnson to Eric Clapton.

Guest Artists: The Sweetback Sisters

Infectious, heartbreaking, charismatic, whimsical. Enjoy a preview of our Week 2 guest artist and be sure to catch their full set on Sunday, January 29.

Saturday Evening, January 28, 7 pm

emcee: Joel Kadarauch

Northern Lights Celtic Dancers

Northern Lights Celtic Dancers will present both traditional and state-of-the-art Irish dancing routines of reels, jigs and hornpipes. Our dance troupe always welcomes new students ages five and older to join us to learn Irish step dancing.

A trio of girls – Jessica Zimmer, Natalie Fraser, and Charlotte Severin – who love dogs, food, fandoms, and most importantly singing. The Lucid Dreamers can frequently be found at Middle Way Café open mics, or pretending to practice and be productive around Anchorage.

Red Elk

Amy Liu, Angela Oudean, Richard Gelardin, and Danny Booth with old time and bluegrass instrumentals and vocals

Folk’s Tales

Folk’s Tales was founded in 2001 with the idea of preserving the traditions of story telling and acoustical folk music with a special emphasis on ”old timey“ and ”blue grass“ music. Enjoy this offering from Shane Mitchell, Wayne Mitchell, Erin Mitchell, Lindsay Lamar, Dennis Cleary, Leif Sawyer, and Kristin Fernandez.

Jubilee

Music by Shonti Elder, Elsa Aegerter, Denise Martin, and Jim Kerr.

The Squash Blossoms

Peggy Finnegan, Amy Hayes, and Jessica Speed are three gals who love to harmonize and play together.

Singer/songwriter known for finger style guitar in both standard and open tunings. Currently working on a new CD and also leading a finger picking guitar workshop. (See p. 14 for details.)

Wade Hampton Miller

Wade was the 1980 United States Mountain Dulcimer Champion, and has played concert tours in Finland, Sweden, Japan, Korea, Russia and Canada, as well as the United States.

Patrick McCormick

Patrick was once one of the kids sliding down the banister at the Wendy. Now he’s one of the adults doing it.

Sunday Afternoon, January 29, 1 pm

emcees: Ryan Brubaker & Dylan Williams

Frying Fiddle

Lisa Maloney has had so much fun dancing to Irish fiddle music over the years, she decided to try making a little music herself. Hopefully Ben and Chris Richardson of Red Cap & the Cyser Boys can keep her from getting into too much trouble.

Not Quite Wright

Duncan, Addy, Oliver, Cathy, and Geoff Wright have a collective love of music that spans genres including punk, hip-hop, folk, reggae, country, and world music. They run all of these influences through an acoustic blender and add plenty of DIY attitude!

This community after school music group is composed of gifted, energetic young jazz improvisors from Anchorage and Eagle River exploring the creative art of jazz improvisation. This group really cooks! Featuring Arthur Welsh, Ben Rogers, Harry Turner, Cade Chastain, Sawyer Barta-Bari, Alyssa Hargis, Hudson Adams, and Maya Bowler.

Country Gospel Band

Davis Normand, Jill Ekstrom, and Jan Fry will perform a few country gospel tunes.

db pedersen

db pedersen hails from Wisconsin, where he taught himself to throat sing in the style of nomadic sheep herders of Tuva and Mongolia. He works in dance, scores and does voice Foley (sound effects) for theater, and sings for kids of any age.

Midnight Starlight

Tom Lambert, Liz Santoro, and Scott Weller take you on a 15-minute tour from Duke Ellington to New Orleans to Cuba to Latin America… Yes, it can be done.

The Sevrin Persson Band

Sevrin Persson, 9th grader at South Anchorage High School returns for his 6th AFF, performing a variety of music with family and friends: Lloyd Persson, Jason Norris, and Stefan Otterson.

Irish Cultural Collective

The Irish Cultural Collective is a roving, community-based session of Irish folk music and dancing. Join us!

The Koenigs

Aaron and Al Koenig perform music by Giuseppe Silvestri, Hans Last, and Guy Clark, done in their own inimitable style. These tunes must be experienced to be believed.

Two classically trained violinists, Amy Farnham, and Rachel Silverstein, take up fiddle with Angela Oudean.

Nick ”The Dream“ Weaver

Nick is a singer/songwriter and has been performing actively in Alaska since 1997. All songs that he has available are recorded in his home studio and made available for free downloads on Facebook, Reverbnation, and Soundcloud.

Sunday Evening, January 29, 7 pm

emcee: Brett Jokela & Terri McCoy

The Brubaker Family Band

Straight from the home fireside, Ryan, Maya, Neena, Carter and Michael Brubaker bring a blend of traditional, bluegrass and contemporary music and harmonies that will warm up your evening.

Chad Reynvaan

Chad Reynvaan is a staple on the Anchorage music scene, playing what the Anchorage Press calls ”happy go lucky pop rock.“ Chad has two albums of original solo material, one with his group “The Sweeteners,” and he’s in two other bands.

The Biscuits – Bob Fairchild, Michael Faubion, Tom Torvie, Matt Faubion, and Kelly Leseman – continue to bring music to the stage that makes you want to tap your toes and sing along.

Dan Booth & Amanda Kerr

Alaskan husband and wife duo will play a few of their favorite traditional (and not-so-traditional) duets and fiddle tunes.

The Vinyl Floors

The Vinyl Floors performs its last AFF before three members depart for college this fall. They have performed over 30 AFF performances between them, and have always looked forward to this special event in January of each year. With Zach Bassett, Ryan Brubaker, Spencer DeBerard, and Dylan Williams.

Guest Artists: The Sweetback Sisters

Our guest artists close out the Folk Festival with rollicking country swing that illustrates their love for traditional music and their joy of singing together. With their surrogate-sister harmonies and signature matching dresses, the Sweetback Sisters offer a varied and engaging repertoire. See bio on page 31.